


Drink up

by Beginte



Series: Work and Play [5]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Q is not a lightweight, Q's colourful drinks argue with Bond's manly alcohol sensibilities, self-indulgent headcanons about Q's drinking preferences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 22:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6059917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beginte/pseuds/Beginte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Bond warily eyes Q’s drink. It’s a colourful monstrosity held in a tall, bizarrely shaped glass and adorned with a tacky paper umbrella stabbed into a stack of exotic fruit slices that would be more at home at some beach resort club with blinding lights. It’s also in such alarmingly neon shades of yellow and pink that Bond tentatively feels it might be a safe bet to presume it glows in the dark.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p>In which Q's tastes in alcohol are discussed and Bond is bad at resisting temptation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drink up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [releasetheglitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/releasetheglitch/gifts).



> A wildly self-indulgent ficlet mostly about my headcanons regarding Q's drinking habits :D
> 
> For the ever so lovely [releasetheglitch]() who is partially responsible for this fic because we ramble about headcanons a lot and I love it :D

* * *

Bond warily eyes Q’s drink. It’s a colourful monstrosity held in a tall, bizarrely shaped glass and adorned with a tacky paper umbrella stabbed into a stack of exotic fruit slices that would be more at home at some beach resort club with blinding lights. It’s also in such alarmingly neon shades of yellow and pink that Bond tentatively feels it might be a safe bet to presume it glows in the dark.

Q catches his offended gaze and arches a challenging eyebrow before taking a sip of the ridiculously named abomination. Bond sips on his own much more decent and simple martini and refuses to rise to the bait when Q provocatively eats one of the frilly fruit slices and licks his fingers while holding an impossibly erotic eye contact. Bond’s face may not twitch, but his nether regions made no such promise, and his trousers feel a bit tighter.

Q’s tastes in alcohol are as eccentric as they are in his clothes. He likes to drink a pint in a pub sometimes, but that’s as conventional as he gets - when going out to drink (which they don’t do often, but occasionally they feel inclined and have the time), he decidedly favours the overwhelmingly colourful, fruity concoctions that shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Many a time Bond has been forced to endure ordering one perfectly normal drink for himself and then a wildly embarrassing festival of colours in a glass for Q, and then to sit in Q’s company while he drank it in public. Sometimes through a straw. Alcohol should _not_ be consumed through a straw, in Bond’s opinion.

It’s all partly because Q has a shockingly high tolerance threshold, especially for someone of his weight. He’d told Bond he did a lot of drinking back in his late uni days (a touch alarming, considering Q entered university at 15 and left at 19 with a masters in engineering and three other bachelor degrees) and hacking days, and also did some drinkable chemical experiments involving alcohol with his chemistry mates at uni.

“If I can’t get buzzed, I might as well enjoy my drink aesthetically,” Q remarks archly now, as he’s done a few times before when Bond would eye his fruity drink _du jour_ with disdain. (Today he’s ordered it while they wait for Alec Trevelyan to join them, back from Japan and currently imprisoned in Medical.)

“You think that’s aesthetic?”

“More pleasing than an innocent olive shivering in a glass of bland alcohol, certainly.”

Bond nudges his foot under the table and Q retaliates, which devolves into a lazy game of footsie as they bicker over work and discuss whether Bond’s upcoming mission really does necessitate a hand grenade miniaturised into a cigarette lighter. Bond saw the sketch for the idea a few weeks ago and has been coveting it ever since (never forgetting his ultimate goal to prod and bribe Q into designing him that exploding pen), but Q is being difficult.

“Mmm, maybe if you’d taken care to every once in a while return the equipment I give you, I’d be more inclined to make new toys for you,” Q says and takes another sip of his abominably colourful drink.

“But Quartermaster, a grenade by definition is designed to explode, so I couldn’t possibly be blamed for not returning it,” Bond hums into Q’s cheek. “It’s a win-win, really.”

Q snorts contemptuously, Bond’s logic clearly not received favourably.

Bond shuffles even closer, dropping his voice to a sultry tone, and whispers an offer of several tantalising sexual favours he’d be (more than) happy to trade for a grenade lighter. Q hums contemplatively, tracing an elegant finger over the sugar-coated rim of his glass, and then proceeds to lick his finger, finishing with a brief suckle at the digit, sly green eyes flashing up at Bond from under the soft eyelashes.

Dirty little minx. And such a smug, clever bastard, Bond thinks, trying to maintain dignity as his trousers tighten a fraction more.

Q’s eyes twinkle with merciless amusement, but the pupils are wide and hauntingly smouldering with interest. There’s a matching, slight flush over his dark lips, and he looks delectable and enticingly affected by Bond’s lewdly whispered propositions.

“Well,” he says, allowing his voice to be a little raspy with want, and Bond feels a bit smug but also can’t stop thinking about all the sounds Q makes in bed, that gorgeous, gorgeous voice unbridled. “You do present a tempting negotiation...”

“I try,” Bond purrs.

“...but I happen to know for a fact that you enjoy all those things just as much as I do, so it doesn’t seem like a particular sacrifice,” Q finishes with a dismissive crinkle of his shapely nose. The facade is somewhat betrayed by his eyes which are still dark and eager. Well, at least if he can’t have the lighter, Bond is fairly sure he’ll still have some very excellent sex tonight, which is definitely his preference if he were to choose.

Still, he’s not exactly known for being one to quit while he’s ahead (something Q would confirm emphatically and with several eye-rolls if asked), so he persists.

“What would you have in mind?” he hums quietly into Q’s cheek and then kisses the corner of his mouth; a small, lingering, teasing kiss from which he pulls away very slowly and only a little, nuzzling softly.

Q makes another pondering sound, and then utters a small laugh, a promisingly devilish glint lighting up his eyes in a way that draws Bond inexorably ever closer.

He makes an expectant face when Q smiles at him a little bit like a fox or a cunning crow.

“How about a riddle, then?”

Never let it be said Q can’t surprise him.

“A riddle?” Bond repeats a touch dubiously.

“I’ll give you a riddle, and if you can work out the answer, I’ll make you the damn grenade,” Q says, and well, Bond is not one to refuse a challenge.

“Alright.”

Q smiles and shifts a little to face him better.

“Four men are in a boat out in the middle of a lake,” Q narrates. “Each one of them has a cigarette, but they cannot smoke because no one has any matches or a lighter. So one of the men throws his cigarette out, and the entire boat becomes a cigarette lighter.”

Bond blinks. Q looks smug.

“Right...” Bond drawls slowly, the riddle perfectly memorised as he turns it over in his mind. He takes a breath to suggest a joke of a solution, but then pauses. “Do I get a limited number of guesses?”

“Seven, let’s say,” Q offers whimsically with a smirk. “Any thoughts so far?”

“The lake was full of gasoline and that one man’s cigarette was already lit, so it set the whole lake and boat on fire.”

“Pyromaniacs, you and Trevelyan both. And no, that’s wrong, however creative it was. Six attempts remaining,” Q takes a long sip of his abysmal drink. He licks the sugar off his lips, pink tongue flashing tantalisingly, and Bond follows it with his eyes. “And just so you know, I still expect those sexual favours you’d mentioned.”

“Oh, most definitely,” Bond grins and leans in to claim that kiss he’s been thinking about for a good while now.

Q’s lips are warm and soft and pliant, curling into a small smile for a brief moment before he sucks on Bond’s bottom lip, nipping gently to deepen the kiss, and Bond complies more than eagerly. He runs a hand through Q’s rich curls, pulling him closer, and hums happily as Q pushes the kiss into the category of slightly inappropriate for public space. Their tongues slide together, Q a little wicked and playful and- oh.

Q’s mouth tastes absolutely delicious.

Beyond the usual, familiar loveliness, there’s a new, appealing mixture of tart, sour sweetness and the echo of alcohol, chased by something mildly fruity. Q’s drink. Q’s horrible, terrible, abominable, embarrassing drink. Q’s surprisingly _tasty_ , horrible, terrible, abominable, embarrassing drink.

When they pull apart, Bond chases Q’s lips with a small peck, as he often does, because he never feels like he’s had enough and because it makes Q smile, but this time he also follows the urge to taste that damnable drink again. Q can _never_ find out about this.

They talk a bit more, mostly about work (one of Q’s minions was accidentally set on fire today, which makes it third such incident this month, and it’s only the 17th) and a little bit about other things (Bond’s been thinking about putting up a new bookshelf for their ever-expanding collection of random second-hand books) as they wait for Alec to escape the clutches of Medical and join them.

Bond’s mostly managed to forget about the taste he’d gotten of the drink, but then Q excuses himself to pop out to the loo, and Bond is left alone at the table with the liquid monstrosity glaring neon colours at him. It seems wrong that something so painfully horrid could actually taste so appealingly.

Bond narrows his eyes at the drink. It seems to be mocking him.

Q isn’t here... No. No, no. Bond stomps on the treacherous thought. This drink offends his personal sense of style, he will _not_ try it. Q would never let him hear the end of it, especially after he’d offered Bond a sip for months each time they went out for drinks, and Bond always turned his nose up at it, because he was _not_ going to drink colourful, frill-adorned concoctions, and he _definitely_ was not going to drink them through a straw.

But Q isn’t here...

Casting a brief yet wary glance towards the back of the pub where Q had disappeared, Bond quickly reaches for the frankly offensive drink and takes a sip. It tastes as good as Q’s lovely mouth had suggested. Bond swallows and places the drink exactly where it had been, Q emerging only a second later and heading back towards their table. Bond sits perfectly still and affects a mildly bored countenance.

Q stops by their table, green eyes flicking briefly over Bond and then travelling straight to the glass with his colourful drink, and well, Q is a spy, too, and has an eidetic memory on top of it. He looks at the glass, then back at Bond who’s not moving at all, and he tips his head to the side, shoulders sagging, his expression eloquent.

Bond blinks and puts on his best ‘ _Yes?’_ face, trying for innocence, which, admittedly, may not come all that naturally to him.

Q snorts, a gleam of fondness swirling in his eyes as he takes his seat, and Bond smiles at him, shifting so that Q can shuffle closer and claim another kiss.

“Thief,” Q hums softly, and Bond smiles at him.

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Quartermaster.”

“Hmmm.”

Bond tries to regain what’s left of his dignity and finishes his own drink.

Alec arrives five minutes later, turning a few heads because of the slightly alarming dressing on his right temple and the three stitches on his cheekbone just below. He makes a beeline for their table, startling a waitress on the way.

“Quartermaster, the angel in my ear, the light in my darkness,” he beams at Q, and Bond scowls at him for it.

Like most 00s, Alec adores their Quartermaster, though he often is very exuberant in said adoration. He once rather famously sprinkled confetti on the floor of the _entire_ Q-Branch as a ‘thank you’ for getting him out of a collapsing Venezuelan power station just before it blew up. (Q got a twitch in his eye because he kept finding bits of the confetti for a week after it had been cleaned up.)

“006, good to finally see you back home,” Q smiles mildly. “And whole,” he adds.

“All thanks to you, Q. All thanks to you,” Alec grins broadly as he slumps onto a free chair. “James! A lovely Japanese gent with half his ear blown off asks to give you his best.”

“I’m sure he does.”

They talk and drink some more, and Bond doesn’t think about the riddle for the rest of the evening which ends when Alec saunters off to his hotel to sleep despite being advised against it, due to a mild concussion.

Only later, at home, after a round of vigorous and slightly giggly sex, Bond suddenly experiences a jolt of enlightenment, the solution to the riddle sparking in his head before the sweat even dries on his skin. Sex has always been a good stimulant for him. Q is sprawled on his back beside him, well shagged-out and for all the world ready to fall asleep, and Bond quite cruelly nudges him. Grinning, he murmurs the answer to the riddle into Q’s ear before nipping gently at the lobe.

Q breathes a chuckle, slightly raspy from the first onset of sleep and the post-orgasmic haze, and hums in contentment.

“Oh, very well, then. I’ll make you the damn grenade.”

Bond grins and presses a kiss to the corner of Q’s smile, and then assumes his favourite sleeping position, that is snuggled into Q’s side and with an arm over Q’s waist. Q makes a pleased, drowsy sound.

Bond falls asleep quite positive he’ll eventually get Q to make him that exploding pen.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really like the first half of this fic and really dislike how the other half (mostly written today) turned out. I hope it's just me and that it was still enjoyable to read!
> 
> Also, I had no idea that riddle was from Batman, I read it online ages ago and only just googled it now and found out. Sorry about that.


End file.
